As with any business restructuring plan, companies will keep what is working within its goal set and dump the rest. The same is true when Electronic Arts recently announced a restructuring plan to offset a recent US$22 million loss in the company. With that being said, EA searched within itself to find areas not performing to its satisfaction, and unfortunately, the EA Chicago Studio stood out as one of the areas that needed to be cut.

In a frank memo released by EA President Frank Gibeau, he says quite plainly that the poor performance of the Chicago Studio was pivotal to the studio’s demise:

Within the EA Games Label, we are committed to running each franchise and facility as a city/state, teams with unique creative identities as well as responsibility for product quality, ship dates and profitability. We recognize that games require large investments and extended development cycles. We’re willing to take risks, make long-term investments, and to support teams and individuals between launches. But each team is responsible for staying on a reasonable path to profitability. Sticking to that strategy is what gives us the financial resources and flexibility to take risks on new projects.

Gibeau continues:

Unfortunately, EA Chicago hasn’t been able to meet that standard. The location has grown dramatically in the past three years, while revenue from the games developed there has not. The number of employees has grown from 49 in 2004 to 146 people currently in the new facility in downtown Chicago. As it stands, EA Chicago has no expectation of hitting our profitability targets until FY2011 or later.

According to the rest of the memo, the EA Chicago Studio’s 146 employees will be given severance packages to those eligible, and many will be offered positions in EA at other locations. As for projects that the Chicago studio was responsible for such as the Def Jam IP and an upcoming Marvel Fighting title, their futures are even less certain than the studio’s employees.